The Broadcasting Press Guild has elected Jake Kanter, executive editor of Business Insider, as its new chairman for a two-year term.

The BPG is a membership organisation for journalists who cover television, radio and the media. For the past 44 years, it has held on-the-record lunches with media executives and creatives and it also runs an annual awards lunch recognising the best in British TV, radio, podcast and streaming media programmes. The BPG Awards lunch in March is a fixture in the awards calendar and has been sponsored for the last two years by Virgin Media.

The Guild also elected Broadcast’s International Editor Manori Ravindran as its new Lunches and Events Secretary and added several new members to its Executive Committee, including Gideon Spanier, Global Head of Media at Campaign; Scott Bryan, TV Editor at BuzzFeed; and Joe Mayes, TMT reporter at Bloomberg.
Outgoing BPG chair Caroline Frost said she enjoyed her two years as the Guild Chair very much. Frost will continue to be the Guild’s TV Nominations Secretary.

Notes to editors:
The Broadcasting Press Guild was founded in 1974 and has more than a hundred and forty members. They are journalists who specialise in covering television, radio and the media, and include critics, previewers, media correspondents and feature writers from national newspapers, broadcasters and leading trade journals and websites.

The 42nd annual BPG awards, sponsored by online streaming service Now TV, will be presented next month at a lunch in central London.

The BBC Two drama, Wolf Hall – starring Rylance and Foy and written by Peter Straughan from the novel by Hilary Mantel – leads the way with four nominations, including Best Drama Series. In that category, it is up against Doctor Foster (BBC One), Fortitude (Sky Atlantic) and Humans (C4).

Rylance is nominated as Best Actor for his role as Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall, alongside Timothy Spall (Enfield Haunting, on Sky Living), Aidan Turner (Poldark/And Then There Were None, BBC One), Ben Whishaw (London Spy, BBC Two).

The Best Single Drama award will be contested by An Inspector Calls (BBC One), The Dresser (BBC Two) and The Vote – Live from Donmar Warehouse (More 4).

The BPG Awards – given only for work commissioned in the UK – are highly prized by programme-makers because they are selected independently by TV and radio correspondents, critics and previewers.

The Awards lunch, at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on Friday March 11th 2016, will be sponsored for the first time by online streaming service Now TV. http://www.nowtv.com. The event will be attended by the winners, BPG members and leading broadcasting executives.

Sky Atlantic’s documentary about Scientologists, Going Clear, has been nominated as Best Single Documentary, alongside Love You To Death: A Year of Domestic Violence (BBC Two), My Son the Jihadi (C4) and Professor Green: Suicide and Me (BBC Three).

Bob Monkhouse: The Million Joke Man (Gold) is nominated for Best Documentary Series, with Inside The Commons (BBC Two), Face of Britain by Simon Schama (BBC Two) and The Murder Detectives (C4).

In the Best Entertainment/Factual Entertainment category, First Dates (C4) is up against The Great British Bake Off and the Graham Norton Show (both BBC One) and Wild Things (Sky1). The Best Comedy award will be contested by Car Share (BBC One), Catastrophe (C4), Detectorists (BBC Four) and Hunderby (Sky Atlantic).

This year the BPG is recognising the growing importance of programmes commissioned for showing online first, instead of on a broadcast channel. Our new Made for Online (Digital First) award will be contested by two Amazon Prime commissions, The Man in the High Castle and Ripper Street, and two from BBC iPlayer – Adam Curtis: Bitter Lake and Car Share.

The new award replaces the Multichannel Award – instead of which, one non-PSB programme or performer is voted onto every shortlist.

The annual BPG award for innovation in broadcasting will this year be contested by BT TV for its UHD Channel, ITV’s The Sound of Music Live, More 4’s The Vote – Live from Donmar Warehouse and Russell T Davies, for the multiplatform series: Cucumber, Banana and Tofu (C4, E4 and All 4).

The Breakthrough Award – for someone who attained a new level of success in 2015 – will be between Gemma Chan (Humans) Michaela Coel (Chewing Gum), Sian Gibson (Car Share) and Aidan Turner (Poldark/And Then There Were None).

1. The winners will be announced at the 42nd BPG Awards lunch in the beautifully restored Theatre Royal Drury Lane on Friday March 11th 2016, sponsored by Now TV. The Harvey Lee Award for outstanding contribution to broadcasting, which is in the gift of the BPG Executive Committee, will be presented as well. Winners will be informed in advance and places at the lunch are by invitation only.

2. The shortlists for Radio Broadcaster of the Year and Radio Programme of the Year will be announced in a week’s time.

3. The Broadcasting Press Guild was founded in 1974 and has more than a hundred members. They are journalists who specialise in covering television, radio and the media, and include critics, previewers, media correspondents and feature writers from national newspapers, broadcasters and leading trade journals and websites.

Innovation in Broadcasting Award
BT TV for its UHD Channel
The Sound of Music Live (ITV)
The Vote – live from Donmar Warehouse (More 4)
Russell T Davies for multiplatform series: Cucumber, Banana & Tofu (C4, E4 & All 4)

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As is our practice, we are posting the 10 TV Nomination Category Lists for you to look at and offer suggestions for programmes that you think were outstanding in the Awards Year. They must have been commissioned/produced in the UK and aired in calendar year 2013.

We’re also looking for your suggestions for the Innovation and Breakthrough Awards, which are decided by the Executive Committee. You can see the criteria here:

Since 2006 the BPG Innovation Award has been given to recognise original thinking across programming, production and technology.

The Breakthrough Award recognises an individual performer who has ‘broken through’ to the big time in the year in question.

You can navigate to each individual list using the links on the right.

Please use the Comment Box at the foot of the appropriate page to make your suggestions for programmes that should be added to the list. All suggestions for will be considered for inclusion, but inclusion is not guaranteed.

Once the comment period is over, we will open the lists to voting from the end of this week. First Round voting will end Thursday Jan 30 and the final Voting round will begin Feb 3 and end Feb 7.